Kai Holst

"The Holst Case"

Suicide or murder?

Holst's family, many of his friends and colleagues in the resistance movement, among them Hans Ringvold and Erik Myhre, held the opinion that Holst was murdered. Holst's sister, Else Heyerdahl-Larsen, contacted Norwegian authorities, but was warned against looking into the case as it could be dangerous. Ole Otto Paus, then an army captain, later a major general, was married to the sister of Holst's widow and in 1945 in Oslo he saw the documents from the police investigation when he tried to check the case. Paus found it especially troubling that Holst had bought sleeping car tickets from Stockholm to Oslo for his wife and himself for the day after he was found dead. against continued research into Holst's death. The same police officer also threatened Holst's widow and wife to leave the case. against any further research into the case, as he risked his life by doing so.

Renewed research

In the 1990s, Holst relatives contacted the lawyer Jan Heftye Blehr. Blehr contacted Rettsmedisinsk institutt (the Norwegian forensic institute) in order to reexamine the autopsy of Holst. The pathologist Olving stated that: "from the findings at the autopsy there is nothing that speaks against that it could be a suicide. There is however nothing that rules out that it could be a murder". On the basis of Major General Paus' statements, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security took up the case and in 1995 the historian Trond Bergh was in Stockholm and got to see what material the Swedish security police Säpo had that was related to Holst's case. According to the Minister of Justice, Grete Faremo, no new information was found. Borge and Løchen believed it was the communists who had murdered Holst, and the same view was held by the former XU agent Wiggo Ljøner. Professor Skodvin noted certain shortcomings in the police investigation, but concluded that from the material, it was clear that the cause of death was suicide. Professor Tore Pryser claims that with the level of detail Säpo went into in similar cases there must have been a dossier: "Everything points to the information about Holst having been destroyed." There is however some information relating to Holst in dossiers regarding three other persons.

Holst was found dead in an apartment building where the German intelligence organisation, the Abwehr, had a cover apartment, while a British SIS agent lived in the apartment building next door. According to Ahreson's daughter, Holst did however have an agreement with him to lodge Norwegian resistance fighters who were under threat, and Holst was therefore in close contact with Ahreson and not some distant acquaintance. According to her, contradicting what he told the Swedish police, Ahreson had recognised Holst's voice on the intercom, waited for him to arrive at the apartment, which did not happen, but registered that the elevator passed, heard voices and after that a gunshot.

According to the Swedish police Holst was found with the pistol in his right hand, something that has been interpreted as a sign of suicide. Gun experts do however say that it is highly unusual for a handgun to remain in the dead person's hand, as the recoil combined with almost immediate loss of muscle firmness will result in the weapon falling out of the person's hand. That the body was found with the gun in its right hand is also something that provoked a strong reaction from the family, as according to them Holst was left-handed. In the Swedish police's 32-page report about the case the conclusion of suicide is written in only one place: on the front page, the forensic pathologist who performed Holst's autopsy wrote Suicidum, Latin for suicide. The same physician who in his autopsy report drew no conclusion concerning how Holst died, suicide or murder, signed the police report, but according to Swedish handwriting experts the signature has been forged.

Holst's superior in Stockholm in 1945, Wladimir Mörch Hansson, said that Holst received death threats, and found the lack of Swedish assistance in solving the case impossible to explain.

Odd Feydt, active in the resistance group 2A and in 1943 leader of Sambandskontoret (a Norwegian intelligence office in neutral Sweden) stated that Holst was followed (tailed) during his last trip from Lillehammer to Stockholm and that Holst's death might be connected with cooperation between the Norwegian Rettskontoret and the Swedish intelligence organisation C-byrån. was of the opinion that Holst had been murdered. He first stated that the liquidation had been ordered at "high levels within Milorg" but later on changed his opinion, in consultation with the retired landshövding and historian Per Nyström, to its having been done by the Swedes in cooperation with the Norwegians. Holst's close colleague during the war, the Milorg leader Jens Christian Hauge, has been criticised for refusing to assist in casting light on the case. In connection with the press coverage of the case in 1994 Hauge issued a press statement in which he stated that he did not have any specific knowledge of the case, and concluded with the following: "It would be a great relief for me and for all of Kai Holst's remaining comrades if this sad case could be solved."

Operation Claw

The question has been asked whether Kai Holst's death could be connected with his task at Lillehammer, a hypothesis primarily put forward by the historian Tore Pryser. Holst might have had with him information from Lillehammer that could damage the operation later known as "Operation Claw" (in Norwegian Lillehammer-kuppet).

Kai Holst never received any decoration from Norwegian authorities for his wartime efforts, in spite of his superior Wladimir Mørch Hansson recommending one to the council of the resistance forces in January 1946. He was however posthumously commended by George VI of Great Britain on 24 June 1950 for Brave Conduct. was killed by Swedish intelligence to prevent him from reporting Operation Claw to the SIS. aired by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) on 1 April 2013 and by the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation (SVT) in May 2013